This speaker has a levitating UFO floating on top of it

Because of course it does

This week, we’re at the enormous tech tradeshow CES 2016 in Las Vegas, bringing you the latest, coolest and most exciting new technology straight from the show floor. Find out more here, and see what we’ve covered so far here.

It has a levitating, rotating UFO just sitting on top of it like it’s no big deal. Look:

The magnetically levitating part of the speaker automatically takes off when it’s fully charged, and gently lands itself when it’s almost out of power. It charges wirelessly (of course) and is submersible in water up to a metre deep.

Called Mars, the speaker is made by a company called Crazybaby. We spoke to them (honestly, our question basically consisted of “wuh?!”) and they told us that as well as being insanely cool, the UFO part is to ensure the sound isn’t dampened or altered by anything. In other words, a speaker floating in space gives off unadulterated 360-degree audio, which is the dream.

Crazybaby call it “nearly loss-free sound,” and it certainly sounded good even on the noisy show floor. We can’t honestly say we heard a difference from other high-end audio systems, but who cares when it looks like this?

After being funded on Indiegogo (it raised about $800k), Mars is now available for preorder for an eye-watering $299 (£205). That’s a lot for a speaker, but probably not a lot for your own levitating UFO sound machine. It’s on Amazon US but not UK, and while Amazon will apparently deliver it to the UK, that costs another $100 (£70) because of fees and suchlike.

Essentially, this means owning a floating spaceship speaker is probably beyond most of us – but that’s hardly surprising, is it?